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Drug gang violence intensifies in Mexico

Drug violence intensified in Mexico as police found the bullet-riddled body of a former Mexican state prosecutor on a street in the Gulf coast city of Boca del Rio.

Juan Carlos Labourdette's body was discovered in the early hours on Thursday, a day after his home was burned down, said Veracruz state assistant prosecutor Jose Luis Peri.

A message left with the body indicated he was killed by drug gang members, Peri said.

The discovery came after attackers slit the throat of a teenage boy, and a hostess for a soccer team was tortured and beheaded as suspected drug violence intensified in northern Mexico.

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Also on Thursday, gunmen opened fire on state police headquarters in the city of Irapuato, in Guanajuato state, killing at least three officers, said Antonio Cano, a spokesman for the state Public Safety Department.

Minutes later, assailants shot at state police offices in the nearby city of Silao. No one was wounded in that attack, Cano said told Reforma newspaper.

Earlier, police found a 15-year-old boy with his throat slit inside a house in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico's most volatile city, across from El Paso, Texas, a statement said on Thursday.

Along the border to the northwest, police in the city of Tijuana found the headless, tortured body of a hostess for a second division soccer team in a rubbish dump, local authorities said on Thursday.

In a separate incident, attackers shot dead a woman in the southeast of the city outside her house.

Eight others died in the past 24 hours in Ciudad Juarez, and one person died in a mountainous area of the same state of Chihuahua, a key area in battles between drug cartels for control of trafficking routes into the United States.

Some 9,600 people have died in suspected drug-related attacks in Mexico since the start of 2008 despite a military clampdown involving some 40,000 troops deployed across the country.

At least 2,800 people have been killed in Ciudad Juarez, a city of 1.3 million, since the start of 2008.

The United States says it wants Mexico to receive aid funds for its fight against organised crime groups as soon as possible, despite a potential legislative snag, ahead of a North American leaders summit in Mexico this weekend.

"We're working to try to deliver aid as quickly as possible to Mexico," US State Department spokesman Robert Wood said.

Senator Patrick Leahy has voiced concerns about human rights in Mexico; he has asked for a report on some rights concerns before Mexico would receive the funds.

The assistance could be worth around $US100 million ($A119.03 million), The Washington Post has reported.

"Certainly we believe President (Felipe) Calderon is doing everything he can to - to try to improve the situation in Mexico with regard to human rights, particularly as it concerns the security forces," Wood stressed.

Calderon will welcome US President Barack Obama and Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to Guadalajara, Mexico this weekend.